Is there a perfect employee incentive?
Well, not all employee incentives are created equal. Employee incentives are to reward top performers.
That is the point! Just like a diverse workplace, incentives can take any shape—from the occasional treat or paid meal, to days off, vacations and extra income.
The best incentives should be like your best employees —innovative, motivating and willing to support the entire team to advance to new heights. Developing an effective reward system should be as valuable as your top performers.
Reward Programs Promote Empowerment
The key to an employee reward program is to promote a sense of empowerment and ownership. Hard work equals more profits, so employees should be able to share in profits, as well as receive individual recognition for their performance.
The first thing is to make employee incentives, rewards and recognition public and highly visible! Everyone in the workplace should understand that the company values good work and rewards high performance.
Concrete evidence of the company’s appreciation of top performers will provide each employee a sense they are working for something than the benefit of senior management. The result is a more motivated, energized and enthusiastic work force—the perfect recipe for high productivity.
Employee Recognition Equals Employee Engagement
As one of the most powerful tools in the business world, incentive programs can improve the overall quality of employees, more than almost any other factor. When employees are adequately recognized and engaged, they will take less sick days, they are less likely to leave, more flexible and much, much more valuable.
Faced with sagging performance in customer service, American Express needed a change to motivate its call centers. After attempting several plans, with limited success, company leaders came upon a truly brilliant idea. They began providing a revamped benefits package: more pay, flextime and clear recondition for higher performance.
Almost instantaneously, American Express call centers reacted positively, with a 10 percent increase in processing customer calls.
Paid vacations are another popular employee motivation for to reward highest performers.
A paid trip—perhaps costing up to a few thousand dollars—can seem like an extravagantly expensive premium. However, when you crunch the numbers, an investment in employees, by setting an example for all employees to shoot for, becomes money well spent.
The ROI of Employee Incentives
Employee incentive plans—vacations and trips—can have much more “bang for the buck” than a one-off cash bonus. After a time, a single $2500 gift may lose its appeal (especially after it is spent).
However, apply that same $2500 (or even a little less) to a getaway for a top performer, and he or she will return to work with a “glow,” something that will spread throughout a department—or the whole company.
What is a better motivation for a company to get more out of its people? Everyone will need to be the next one on a company-paid holiday!
A well-executed incentive program pays for itself. Spending money on employees provides a return on investment with higher productivity, less sick days taken, improved compliance and better overall morale.
A company can combine the ROI by having the top two (three or more) performing employees take a weekend trip together. When the best employees are enjoying themselves in the same place, who knows what extraordinary things can happen? This makes it a networking opportunity, a way to build relationships and maybe even come up with the next impressive business idea.
Find The Perfect Employee Incentive Program For You!
Not every business can give their best employees paid trips as a way to thank them for their hard work. No matter direction you take your employee incentive program, it should be created to fit your top performers. More importantly, a rewards program should be a highly visible demonstration of their value to your business success.
Of course, employee incentive programs begin with talented employees! Recruiting hiring and onboarding the best talent starts with organization—developing a strategy to cut through the clutter and get the right people for the job.
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